The tale of two closets

Posted on September 25, 2013

Although I like things neat, I’m not a clean freak, like my dear husband, who I affectionately call, “Mr. Ajax.” I remember when we were dating, I invited him over to my apartment for dinner. At the time, I had a long commute, on top of working 70 hours a week at a demanding job. This didn’t leave a lot of time for things like cleaning. It was in the early days of our relationship and I wanted to make a good impression. Sooooo, all the clutter in my apartment went quickly into the ONLY closet of the apartment. Well, Mr. Ken arrived and being the nice person he is, he offered to help. I needed something from the closet. As he approached the closet, I remembered, oops if he opens the door everything will come tumbling out. Busted!

Flash forward 25 years. We live in a beautiful colonial house. It has lots of closet space. But with lots of closet space, comes the need to fill that closet space. The same goes for my home office.

I didn’t think to take before pictures of the closet or home office, so I got some stock photos to give you a sense of the “before” picture.

I was on a cleaning roll and knew I had to act quickly. I don’t get into these moods very often, oh say once every 20 years or so.

The hall linen closet was the focus of my cleaning bug.

The closet in this “before” picture is actually much neater than my linen closet.

Where did all this stuff come from? The closet is only about 12 inches wide and 24 inches deep!

Ah, now this is a thing of beauty. I felt my whole body relax when I was done! I still go by and look into the linen closet and admire my work (Okay, so maybe I do need to get a life.)

Yep, this is pretty much what my office looked like.

You wouldn’t think that that much stuff could come out of this room, but it did!

Ah, that is much better! When I sit in my office now, my mind is clear. I feel more productive. This is partly due to the fact that I don’t have to stare at papers everywhere.

My favorite part of my home office is my zen shelf, where I have rocks I’ve collected from various trips. I have rocks from a Mt. Washington stream, a Vermont river, a desert in New Mexico. I love looking at these and remembering my fun vacations.

So, my lessons learned from all this:

1. When your environment is uncluttered, your mind is uncluttered and you can be open to new possibilities.

Now I remember it’s long since I cleared the clutter from my office. Thanks for reminding me.
A few days back I came across an interesting quote – “If you have a receipt older than a year in your wallet, you probably have grudges older than a decade in your wallet”. Needless to say instantly I checked my wallet and was glad that the receipts were not that old. But now I have a small print out of the quote in my wallet as a reminder. It’s now a lot lighter.
Hope everything is fine over there.

Hi Nancy 😀
Wow !! Minimalistic to say the least !! Since the photo of my desk in: http://bluefishway.com/about/ was taken I am beginning to collect clutter, mainly “just in case” stuff: a torch,cats passports, an LED remote control waiting for me to buy special batteries for etc. I am going to have to declutter before I get to the stage where my desk collapses under the weight. So thanks for this post my friend. It has made me think. Ralph xox 😀

We moved in a new house in May and have been trying to stay ahead of the wave on clutter. (and not a repeat) We threw lots out for the move and our theme at the new place is ‘open and airy’ I find myself wiping every fingerprint off the virgin walls in a clutter-free nazi manner

A good clear out is supposed to be very theraputic and stress relieving. In most modern homes with all adults working, we no longer have that ability to allocate time for the traditional annual ‘Spring Clean’. A great pity really as it does also appear to clear the clutter from our brains.
I must try it sometime. Maybe next year.

I agree with you about the annual spring clean. It’s good to do a fall clean too. As for your cleaning – why not try it soon, rather than wait until next year? There’s no time like the present. If you start small, you may get into a groove. I started by telling myself that I was going to clean out one shelf in the closet.

Nice blog Nancy and not just because you mentioned your dear husband (me) prominently! I’m glad I have such a positive influence on you. I’d say you can clean out the closet in my office but I’m afraid you might throw out one of my favorite toys / gadgets! 🙂

Awesome post!
Mr. Ajax … That is very funny.
I don’t know where all this stuff comes from but every time I turn around it seems like someone dumped stuff in my space (office).
What I do is mark the stuff that needs to go and I pay my 13 year old to get rid of it. It’s more like a bribe.

Too bad I didn’t have a 13 year old hanging around – I would have paid them to do my cleaning for me. Our neighbors’ kids are helpful, but they are only 4 and 7, so I’m not sure how much help they’d be. 🙂

Actually, my office is similar to your old one. But to me it’s quite an improvement over the old explosion. The covered walls and desk clutter seems to enhance my drive whenever writing or illustrating. Have a wonderful day.